Crossroads

Over the 56 years of my life I've faced many crossroads.  Sometimes I've chosen well and other times I've learned from making distinctly poor choices.  In recent weeks I've reached yet another crossroads in my life and have come to recognize something about my own process in these challenges.  First, when the goal I am working toward is something I really want I can be determined (read: stubborn) to the point of self destruction about not giving up.  I can rationalize that I, "haven't worked hard enough, haven't tried long enough, or haven't tried every option"  I look back at the struggle and see every effort toward progress I made that didn't pan out and I tell myself I've made "mistakes" and if I could only keep trying long enough to not make those mistakes everything would be great. Next, when I finally hit the wall (read crash and burn) I spend a great deal of time beating myself up about not making it.  My first marriage was this kind of an experience.  Out of respect for the dead I will not chronicle the details here except to say that he was a loving, sweet and funny guy who had an illness far too damaging for either of us to cope with.  I lasted 11 years in that marriage.  When I looked back at the experience I beat myself up for a long time for not making different choices about it.  But from that marriage I gained some of my most precious spiritual gifts.  I learned to understand people who are not able to be rational at that moment.  He was the one diligently seeking to find the true church of Jesus Christ and he invited the missionaries into our home.  I responded badly to that invitation and it was because of Dan I continued to hear their message.  I learned the truth of the gospel because he wanted so much to know it.  Without that relationship I may never have known the joy of belonging to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. From that marriage I was also blessed with 3 of the most beautiful, smartest, and most loving children ever given to a parent.  I firmly believe that each challenge we meet and learn from is followed by a blessing that matches the scope of the sorrow you endured with an equal portion of joy.  My second marriage is such a relationship.  Monte is the epitome of common sense and rational behavior.  He is my reward. (Makes me wonder why he is saddled with me but it's not my problem ;-)

Other crossroads have been when I was working on my bachelor's degree I had decided that I wanted to be a Child Life Specialist and I threw my whole heart into that- serving a 3 month unpaid internship.  I spent long hours translating medical procedures into Spanish that could (hopefully) be understood by Spanish only speaking children so that they could be prepared for the precedure and reduce the trauma.  It turned out the hospital setting was not really a good fit for me.  I was so sad and convinced myself that I hadn't managed to gain any marketable skills (duh!) 

I went to work in an elementary school and discovered that working with children was my gift.  The Lord had been aiming me at teaching since I joined the church.  I had served many teaching positions with both children and adults but always found myself returning to teaching children.  I also spent the next 15 years working with elementary children, obtaining degrees in teaching at the elementary & middle school levels and in special education.

Now I've reached yet another crossroads.  My special education license is working with emotionally and behaviorally disabled students which is what I have done for the last 10 years but I have hit the wall now.  The burnout rate is high in my profession and it is now my turn.  I am taking a medical leave of absence to figure out that part of my crash and burn has been to feel that I have failed.  I failed my students, my husband, and myself.  It has taken me a full month to clear the fugue enough to recognize that 10 years of teaching represents a success not a failure.  It is just time to choose my next path.  Now that the clouds are clearing I remember that the Lord guided me to where I needed to be on multiple occasions.  If I keep my promises to Him he will prepare a way.

Pouting and Potato Salad

     I had a craving for potato salad on Saturday and boiled some eggs and potatoes with that goal in mind.  Then I got distracted with something else and my husband indicated he wanted to have the famous pork and beef roast (an Oelkers family favorite) for dinner on Sunday.  This means boiled potatoes, or mashed, and gravy which then leaves potato salad sort of extraneous.  My mother in law, Anna, came to dinner on Sunday.  Anna, of course, noticed the boiled potatoes sitting on my counter and offered to help me make the potato salad.  I am not proud to say it but I didn't respond to this offer with the gratitude I should have.  Then I felt bad and it took me a full hour to work through what the problem was.  

     What I realized after pouting about the potato salad for awhile is that potato salad is one of those recipes that everyone makes a little differently and it becomes a staple for family get togethers.  This means that it is one of those recipes that evokes pleasant memories.  What I had done was play with the pictures for awhile, particularly ones of family get togethers that included my Grandmother Anna and I'd started to think about the potato salad she used to make.  I don't have her actual recipe but, over the years, I've developed my own including some of the things I remember about hers.  She always put sour cream in her potato salad, red onions, and (I think) dill pickles.  Anyway,  that is the way I like it.  So, when she offered to "help" make potato salad I got all defensive like I'd have to make her recipe if she was making it.

     Anna Mae makes great potato salad. I like it almost as much as I like my own - but not better.  What I do know is that her family likes her potato salad enough to sometimes make less than diplomatic comments about any potato salad that is not hers.  This is me learning not to be distressed by that.  My recipe (my grandmother's) is not less desirable than Anna's it simply does not evoke the same nostalgic emotional response in the hearts of her loyal children.  Once I had worked my way through that realization I also came to be aware that I am hoping to preserve some of these nostalgic feelings through pictures, stories, and recipes.  While I trecked around the country gathering pictures and stories I also gathered some favorite family recipes.  I am in posession of my Great Grandmother Dorcas' recipes for banana bread, danish dumplings, aebleskivers, raisin filled cookies, etc.  I am also in posession of several of the Oelkers family's beloved recipes as well, and nowww I also have Anna Mae's potato salad recipe.  We made her recipe together and I wrote it down (because, of course, her comment was "I don't have a recipe")  I will share because it truly is a good potato salad recipe.  AND because I love the Oelkers family.  Someday in the near future, maybe, I will make my recipe and share it in like manner.  - By the way, if any of my cousins are reading this and you DO have Grandma's potato salad recipe please share.  

Here goes (keeping in mind that the amounts are approximate):

4 pounds boiled red potates - peeled and diced

10 to 12 boiled eggs - chopped

4 medium scallions (green onions) minced fine - not too much of the green please ;-)

2 stalks celery - chopped small

Dressing:

3 c. mayo

2.5+ tablespoons mustard

2 teaspoons salt 

½ teaspoon black pepper

Thank you Anna Mae, the potato salad is delicious and we made a memory making it together.  THAT is what family is about.

It All Comes Around

Years ago, when I worked for a school age day care, I had gone to some trouble to organize an activity around investigating their family history. One young man scathingly responded, "Those people are dead. Why do I care about this?"  I remember struggling to articulate the connection and curiosity I feel about my ancestors. Why do I care?  

My son, Bill, came to visit today and brought his children with him. We spent hours chatting about children, schools, computers, pickles, and egg cake (go figure) but finally came around to sharing some of the photos I gathered in my travels.  I was struck anew at how often we said "Look how much he/she looks like . . ." and "I remember when we . . ."  We noted that my grand daughter has the same crooked smile found on the faces of 2 of her grandmothers.  My father's elementary school class pictures proved that the mid-forehead hair swoop found on my own head and that of all of my children was my dad's hair swoop first.  

And, most tellingly, a draw toward creativity/artistry runs strongly through our lineage.  My father is an artist, his mother and her sister were artists. Whether that desire toward creativity comes from each generation sharing their own interests with the next or from a genetic predisposition, I believe there is undeniably a genetic componenet to true talent such as my Grandmother and her sister passed along to my father and he passed it to his son, my brother.   The point is, as the love comes back around and one generation spends that precious time with the next, we pass along that which we love.  A visit to my Grandfather Jensen's house would have meant a fish fry and time in the garden.  That was what he loved.  A visit to my father's house for my children would have meant paint or clay or drawing tools were likely to make an appearance.

Today, when my grandchildren came to visit my first thought was for us to create something (I'm not an artist)  We made a fairy garden!  I was reminded of the art projects my Grandmother Va and I had created at this lovely glass table - this table that was passed down to my father, just like that love of creating beautiful things.